


Human Habitation

by comete



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Frenemies, Involuntary Hospitalization, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, and petey is way over his head, gary is not ok at all, gary needs to be locked away with the key thrown away, he is still dumb, jimmy is just fine, tags to be added later, while petey gets some therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comete/pseuds/comete
Summary: [DISCONTINUED FOR NOW :( ]“I was powerless to stop it; powerless to stop the caging of the beast I contributed to making."Petey is tasked with trying to stage a break out of a desperate Gary from his involuntary stay at Happy Volts before Halloween. As the holiday grows closer and closer with promise of a sinister scheme being carried out on the day, Petey starts to see the cracks in the man that is Gary and fears for what is to become of their little town of Bullworth after he has had his day of retribution.
Relationships: Jimmy Hopkins/Everyone, Jimmy Hopkins/Gord Vendome, Jimmy Hopkins/Peter "Petey" Kowalski, Peter "Petey" Kowalski/Gary Smith, former
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19





	1. Thursday, September 3rd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 58 Days until Halloween.

Calculation. Precision. Execution.    
  
Nothing else mattered to him, that much was clear beyond anything else. Coming closer to his deadline of delivering his ploy consumed him with each passing second until he was the epitome of unhinged. He was an entry-level psychologist study if there was ever a human example needed for the unit lesson of psychosis and other wonderful mental plagues.

He brought up his cheesy mantra under his exasperated breath whenever he had hit a wall well past midnight while working in our shared dorm. He would sit hunkered over the single wooden oak desk that laid rested against the faded wallpaper room, the only other piece of furniture consisting of the makeup of the dorm besides our shared wardrobe and our matching twin beds that laid on the opposite side of the room from each other’s own, the feet of the bed facing each other. It was a small space, having nothing more than just the bare essentials for sleep, clothing storage, and a study session, but it was all we needed. After all, less was more. I held that quote to my chest and repeated it outwardly a few times previously, only to be corrected by him for being positively false.    
  
He always saw more as more. Period. No exceptions.

The night before the incident following his departure wasn’t different in the slightest from the months that were trailing behind us on the calendar. Day in and day out, having no other option than to stay put at the school even after being expelled, he would write endlessly with no goal in sight only to then crumple the paper and haphazardly throw it at the trash can that sat next to the doorway. He missed the free-throw and normally couldn’t be bothered to pick up his own litter, despite how many times I passive-aggressively complained about it. With the amount of writing that he did in the time that I knew him, it would seem as if he wrote the word count of the Bible ten times over.    
  
It never ended, until one day it just did.

I stayed close to him often but didn’t hover. I would keep my distance by ten feet, trailing back behind him to give the illusion that we coincidentally were going to the same location, and then would break off from following the leader when it was my stop on the route to get off. And, as all life-altering stories go, this day was filled with normality and routine.    
  
Some early mornings he made it a point to do a quick walkaround of the school’s main building, almost as if he was daring to defy the headmaster as he approached the large steps only to then veer off and stroll along with the brick walling. It was then that I would continue my trek up the cement stairs as he disappeared around the curved corner. His walk to pace around the school’s building was a short one, only taking a few minutes at most, but I believed it was his version of getting a breath of fresh air before continuing his endless writing.   
  
He was a shark circling his prey. He eyed the school with a sneer the closer we stalked to the front double set doors, an emotion of hate and disgust flat on his face. I never knew how he looked by the time he circled back to the entrance and made his way back to our dorms. I was already in the school and finding my locker to exchange books that I would need for the upcoming class.

He was to be compared to a non-verbal guide, an agreement we never made but had maintained every school day without much of a second guess. He was a leader and I was a follower. That day, in particular, was leaning towards chilly, the early beginnings of September as the new arrivals for the school year still tried to adjust to the life of attending classes on campus. It had been a month or so since school began once more, weirdly enough things falling into place as if the previous year had never happened. 

The year before, after his rise and fall of power came crashing down all within a day, he had been expelled at the feet of the Principal after the ginger-haired “hero” near beat him to death atop a balcony. It was a story I cringed hearing, remembering, and breathing. It hurt me knowing the pouring vengeance that struck his veins could never be accomplished due to his own mistakes, errors that ultimately put the stamp on the future that narrowly pointed to, “insanity.”

He would never get the chance to prove himself as the ruler of the school despite the countless hours of planning he did in our dorm. Nobody in the entire town trusted him after he was exposed to be the mastermind behind several injuries and lawsuits. They didn’t have confidence in him and never would, his name being a ghost story in itself. He rarely left the boy’s dorm unless it was his early morning walk or to sneak off somewhere in the dead of night in between long writing sessions. It was almost as if he was making a point to uphold the mysterious rumors about him. He only made the decision to leave when none of the other students in the male dorm were awake and could catch him on the prowl for whatever he was looking for outside of the building, wherever he was disappearing to.   
  
Our walk to the school happened long before any of the other students would rise before the clocktower bell tolled for class to begin. I had always found it easier to navigate the school setting without bumping into bullies or being harassed by a passerby in the hallways. Leaving our dorm far before the awakening of any other student was a plan that worked for both of us.

It was early morning when we were separated without any prior notice. One moment the student was there, the next he wasn’t. It was half an hour before the morning bells chimed out and called everyone on campus to file into the school. Most of the boys opted to stay in until the last absolute five minutes before class on this day, the outside weather starting to turn bitter against them.    
  
I was no different, groaning as my flat digital displayed watch screeched out a stinging alarm that beeps in a row of one second spaced out harmony. I had quickly hit the off button by slamming my device into the rickety wood frame that held up my mattress from the floor. Yawning was then followed by my lips smacking together as my blurred vision tried to focus on the student who was laid passed out across the top of the desk, a scene in the mornings that had been ingrained into the routine just as much as getting dressed and brushing my teeth had.   
  
Neither I nor he had awoken early enough to get in our morning commute together. It had been a day that we had both mutually decided, even without saying it aloud, that sleep was a preferred option than getting up.

Stretching out as my bones cracked in response, I slid out of bed into my overly fluffy pink bunny slippers that laid rested on the ground. The slippers were a gift he gave me last Christmas, poking fun at the coral shirts I wore daily when he thought it would be the practical gag of the year to throw a single red sock mixed in with my laundry of whites. It was mildly funny after I stopped berating him when his smug smile never wavered. Back when times were simpler, a young naive version of me being lost and in the dark about the looming storm cloud that he was.

After letting out one final definitive yawn, I made my way over to where he slept soundlessly on the face of the wood desk. He was slumped over in his cushioned desk chair, his boney hands untensed with a pencil barely in his right fingers, left hand laid atop a stack of nearly ten sheets of paper that had been torn out of a lined notebook. He slept with his mouth half parted open, taking in deep firm breaths with his right cheek being the only cushion for his head as he slept against the wood. His tanned fingers twitched every few seconds, mumbling something in his sleep in response as he dreamed heavily. It made me smile while looking at him in his dark green t-shirt and matching pajama bottoms. To see the boy at peace while asleep, being troubled terribly while awake, was a sight I cherished. The contrasting worlds never clashing, never meeting up. Asleep he wasn’t riddled with stress, anxiety, or delusions. He was himself on a raw, basic level.

He made it clear to me that even if he had only achieved a total of one minute of sleep that I would promise to wake him up every time that I awoke for the day. He seemed to just go along with his endless plans of writing despite my being awake, but I believe it is his ill attempt at trying to maintain a normal everyday schedule. Awake during the day, asleep during the night. Though, this was rarely the case. He was usually back asleep by lunch. 

I uttered his name quietly a few times, not wanting to startle my only friend awake to have him lecture me about being graceful when dealing with someone who is in the middle of sleep. He hated being woke up with a sense of urgency, being able to count on my left hand a few instances where he awoke shaking from the sudden noise and clamor. Since being expelled and having no other option than to stay at the dorm, underage and parents out of state, we had been in this routine over the summer and bleeding now into the school year. I wake him up in the mornings, _gently,_ and he doesn’t put spiders underneath my pillows while I’m gone.    
  
It works out for everyone. 

When he didn’t wake at me calling his name, I hesitantly extended my right hand to his left shoulder that was within reach. If there was one thing I knew about him, he absolutely abhorred being touched. There was no greater crime to him than being at all contacted, including accidental brushes when passing by. He would be happy maintaining a one hundred yard bubble with everyone if he had his way. Breaking the number one taboo rule, I made up my mind and slowly placed my open hand across his cotton fabric-covered shoulder, shaking him in the slightest while repeating his name with a tone higher of firmness. 

Snorting awake from his heavy breathing, bursting back into reality within a second, his soft brown eyes fluttered open with a few strong blinks. His hazy gaze moved from the wall in front of him to me, proceeding to close his eyes and let out a loud yawn when he recognized that it was just me at the other end of the hand. I removed myself from him before he had a word to say about it, contact being delivered in limited doses. 

His eyes remaining closed, the position from the desk not moving while he tried to collect his bearings, another typical morning routine. He grumbled lowly after a few seconds of silence, “Is it before noon? Or is this my second snooze?”

I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me, and spoke up as my light blue matching pajama set wrinkled from my movements. “No, first call,” I relayed, “just getting up for the day. You want me to wake you back up at lunch or let you sleep in?”

Giving a shrug as I turned from my position next to him towards the dresser on the far end of the wardrobe, informing with a tone of sarcasm thick in my words, “Edna is making mystery meatloaf again today because I know how much you love that. Wouldn’t want to miss out on another round of, ‘Can-I-Eat-This-Safely-Without-Going-To-The-Hospital,’ would you?”

He gave a snort in response while I opened my top drawer of the shared wardrobe, drumming my fingers against the top as I avoided eye contact with myself in the attached mirror. Eyes peering down at possible outfit options, I added on, “I’ll try to nab you some coffee or something. See what I can do.”   
My eyes moved up from the clothes in the dresser to the boy in the reflection, he stirring as he tried to will himself to sit up and face the day, to which ended up being unsuccessful as he fell back into the same awful posture he was in. Our morning interactions were strangely intimate, a feeling of domestication stung at my hopeful heart each day that passed.    
  
I believed I could save him, that we would be okay. A part of me still believes that. I believe he is not condemned, nor damned, able with that one right person to be rescued from himself. It’s a thought that lingers with me and perhaps always will. The “what ifs” of life, fantasy and reality being mixed when you’re unsure which is which anymore. Truth and dishonesty, justice and corruption, love and lust.    
  
Where do the lines cross?

He groaned out and summoned me back to reality, a mix of lack of sleep and general depression creating the tone of pity that I offered him when seeing the once successful student now being a shell of his former self. He sighed out softly, followed back with a monotone reference. “Urgh… Wake me up when September ends, would you, Pete?”

I allowed myself to smile at him through the mirror’s flipped world, though he was already starting to fall fast asleep and had his eyes closed. If that's what would make him happy, I would abide by it. The same went for any request, though he rarely asked anything of me after the downfall. “Yeah. I will, Ga-”

It was then the once closed door to our dorm swung open suddenly, abruptly, and loudly. I jumped as my widened eyes caught a glimpse in the reflection in front of me of the intruders that were pouring it at a fast pace from the hallway towards the jolted awake teenager. I swung my body around to get a look at the white-uniformed intruders with my own direct line of sight but was focused on a taller figure coming towards me and blocking my view.   
  
In front of me was none other than my former close friend, Jimmy, a stone face of no expression peered down at me wordlessly with his arms opened wide. His arms were stretched out, truly pinning me against the wardrobe without having to touch me and crowding my space. Behind Jimmy was a rush of loud voices, men yelling different commands that were similar in nature at the boy who had just awoken, who fought back in protest to the raid that was being conducted by shouting out threats wildly.

Harshly I pushed down against Jimmy’s right arm to see the aggression that was playing out behind him, getting a glimpse underneath his arm of the action as I yelled at him to step aside. Directly behind Jimmy was the teen being forcefully shoved to the ground face first, ripping him out of the desk chair he had slept in moments prior. The four-strong appearing men wore surgical face masks and neatly pressed matching white uniforms, looking as if they had just stepped off of a Hollywood set for the newest bad horror movie.

It only had taken me a moment to realize what was happening, but when it all clicked together, I grew as frantic as my roommate. The men in uniform were strapping him in with different belt buckles and loops into a straight jacket while Jimmy played the part of peacekeeper with me, keeping me off their backs by cornering me while they went to work securing the other. The dread leaped through my chest and for a split second, I saw his face in reaction while pressed to the floor. He was paled, eyes that of a man with nothing left to lose.    
  
I felt our mimicking emotions ring out while I called his name. I pushed Jimmy hard to get past, resorting to even trying to land a few punches to the boy I once called a close friend. He hugged me in his arms tightly to pin down my frame as I kicked and screeched, fighting to tear away and rescue my last friend, someone who needed me as much as I needed him. Groups of boys gathered in the hallway to watch the scene even as the morning bell rang for them to attend class. None of them moved as a strapped in student kicked against the carpet for a leverage of balance and yelled at no one in particular.

Through his manic pleas for help, death threats, and everything else horrible under the sun that he could think of, he shouted out a phrase that cuts through to my soul and has latched on ever since.    
  
_ “You did this! You all did this! You all did this to me!” _

Jimmy held me close as I continued to fight away from him even after the orderlies of the local asylum were dragging him through the halls, mumbling to me to calm down to which I ignored wholeheartedly. Tears spilled down my face, his terrified voice ringing out in my mind even after the Boy’s Dorm entrance was shut with a hard swing of the doors.    
  
The truth was absolutely bitter, something I refused to face beforehand. The reality that he stood alone even while in our once tight friend group trio, mental health turning him toxic, and the pressure of societal standards compressing him into a new being who strived to be better than his peers. 

We had cracked him and everyone was to blame, me included.    
  
Men had stolen away Gary Smith before my own eyes and I was powerless to stop it; powerless to stop the caging of the beast I contributed to making.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy!
> 
> this was a story originally made on Fanfic dot net in 2015. I always wanted to rewrite it and now that I am older and just recently got my hands on a new copy of Bully, here I am, back on my bullshit five years later.
> 
> The original copy is about 6 chapters long, SUPER unfinished, and cringe-inducing. I'm going to try and fix all of those things. 
> 
> This is a Gary/Petey fanfic about the ins and outs of their complex relationship. Jimmy is mentioned and makes an appearance a handful of times, but is definitely a side character when put up against the main duo.
> 
> This story is almost completely planned out and I promise that if you stick around you are in for a wild ride. 
> 
> please comment/kudos if you enjoy! I continue writing by checking to see if people are still reading!
> 
> thank u


	2. Saturday, September 12th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 49 Days until Halloween.

I peddled up to the gates of the asylum early the next Saturday morning with nothing on me except the key to my bike chain and what small confidence I pretended to exhibit. It had been a little over a week since Gary had been forcefully ripped off campus and I had finally talked myself into seeing him. It had been a long journey from the dorms all the way to the curvy back roads that led to the building that housed some of Bullworth’s criminally insane, but not to worry! My anxiety kept me company the entire way.

Once arriving at the large gates that showed off the gothic structure of the hospital with an almost comically tall fence to compliment it, I walked my turquoise chipped painted bike to the sole communicator box that rested outside of the large gates. It was a single silver rectangle that held only a red button and built-in speaker to its simplistic design that dared anyone to grant access to the building. I pressed the fire engine red button and waited for any sort of response for a few moments. A gruff voice of an older male answered on the other line, static intertwining with his words that drifted out of the speaker. “Yeah? What is it?”

Clicking my tongue at the offputting response, I regathered my thoughts and tried to form what I was going to say. I should’ve done so beforehand, only having a vague idea of what my reply was going to be and the unwelcoming greeting had thrown me off any train of thought. I still couldn't believe that I was about to visit Gary Smith in a mental facility even as I stood at the gates.

“Well? Spit it out or get lost.”

I stumbled over myself and held the bike handles tightly as I found the words being pieced together in a not-so-smooth manner. “Uh, yeah, um, hi. I'm here to see Gary Smith? I’m Pete. Peter Kowalski. His friend. I-I don’t know when visiting hours are, but-”

The gates opened before I could continue by babbling.

Shrugging my shoulders at the shitty introduction from both parties of the intercom, I hopped off my bike and walked it up the paved path that led to the front doors of the rundown building. I had never seen the local asylum before, only hearing about it through whispers and rumors of the different people I passed by on campus. I didn’t know what I expected, really, but the sight of the wicked hospital straight out of a bad horror movie seemed to suit my fears just fine.

I laid my rusting bike to the left of the steps and adjusted my overly large blue-dyed hoodie, not having been bothered enough to bring the bike lock that sat uselessly on my cot in the Boys’ Dorm. I knew my trip was going to only have one stop and where else would my bike be safer than a gated community?

Letting out a built-up breath, I mentally hyped myself up for whatever laid beyond those double-set doors. I could do this. I can be strong. It’s just a quick visit and then I will be home by the end of the hour. 

I turned away from my bike and proceeded inside the asylum with confidence that was born out of a naive outlook.

Once inside the building, I blinked a handful of times to adjust to the drastic change in lighting. From the cloudy sunned outdoors to the green-hued dark interior was a change I hadn’t expected as I found myself in a dingy waiting room. To my right immediately was a small room that was glassed in by a bulletproof casing and a desk light that illuminated the control switch headquarters. On the short broken marble top counter that was connected to the bulletproof glass was a single clipboard and pen, both of which were being held down by a strong beaded metal that disappeared into the counter to prevent theft.

An overweight man was sitting on the other side of the counter, flipping through a blatantly obvious porn magazine of naked Latina women posing in different seductive ways from what I could tell from my limited view. Without looking up from thumbing through the nude material, the man in the white orderly outfit with the name tag ‘Theo’ spoke to me with strong disinterest in his voice. “Name, time, and patient you are here to see on the clipboard.”

The orderly supposedly named Theo had light brown hair that was short and combed back what little it could be, fair skin that showed wrinkles of age, and a build of a heavyset bodyguard that nobody in their right mind would want to mess with.

He was perfect as an orderly for people who were, in fact, _not in their right mind._

After giving away the information required on the clipboard, I moved my eyes to take another glimpse at the man that tilted the material to get a better view of a woman who was completely indecent. “Put anything metal on the counter and pass through the doors when you hear me press the button.”

His tone was dull, but the information was informative. I thought it was a wise choice to have a metal detector being an obstacle when entering a facility that housed the insane. Placing my only metal object, my brass bike key that I brought along with me but not my bike chain, I readied myself at the double-set metal detecting doors and awaited my cue. A red light buzzed overhead as it came to life, swinging open the doors and allowing me access to the rest of the facility. I stepped through with no issue or caution that I was carrying anything of suspicion.

Theo rose from his place behind the counter and walked through the plastic swinging door that separated his small control center from the rest of the facility, throwing the pornography onto his red swivel chair behind him. He handed me a single badge that read, “VISITOR” in bright blue letters inside of a plastic protector case that was attached to a piece of white string. “Wear this,” he commanded dully as he began walking deeper into the building than just the welcoming center with me trailing behind. “That’s your only ticket out of here. Don’t have it? You stay. Forever. You’ll die here, kid, without that badge.”

My palms went numb as I snapped my head upwards in shock at the man who led me down a series of similarly matching cells and hallways that all blended together. The man turned over his shoulder and caught an eyeful of my worried reaction, smirking in pride of his joke having spooked me. “Just kidding… Or am I? Seriously, though, don’t lose it. You’ll hang onto it until you leave and fork it over when you sign out.”

The longer we walked in the asylum, the worse the conditions around us grew. The entrance wasn’t going to be winning any awards in an upcoming feature of Asylum Weekly, but it was growing deplorable the further we walked. The walls were stained and damp with an unknown substance, the lightening went from a few overhead lights to nothing but the sun-soaked barred windows that accessed the outdoors, and the cell conditions grew awful from what little I could peek in and see as we passed.

“Now,” Theo continued to speak as our journey took us down a final set of double doors past through a nearly bare common area. “Gary is on suicide watch. I am not at liberty to disclose what happened when he arrived or the, er, imaginative things he yelled at me and my staff, but I must inform you before you see him that he is being surveilled nonstop until we deem him as no longer a threat to himself and others. Cellblock B is entirely suicide watch patients. What we passed earlier was Cellblock A.”

The orderly let out a sigh as his walking slowed to the large single door at the end of the long hallway after passing by empty cells similar in makeup. Gary was one of the only few people living in the Cellblock “B” section it seemed. Theo continued the one-sided chatter with annoyance and familiarity with his speech as if he had said the same lines a thousand times over. “The paper you used to sign in with earlier is also your consent to be filmed. I must also tell you that we are recording everything that is on camera for the protection of the guests and staff, however, there is no audio available in the cameras. If there is a situation that was to arise while you are visiting and you would like to file a lawsuit to the party in question, we are able to grant you access to that footage. Any questions?”

I shook my head as we stopped in front of Gary’s cell, a single nametag of tape on the door reading, “SMITH,” in marker to show who was a resident of the room. Theo nodded and looked me up and down, hand reaching out to the metal lock that rested on the door. He furrowed his eyebrows together and paused unlocking the gateway to the cell. He asked with a touch of genuine concern, “You sure ‘bout this, kid? I get he is your friend and all, but I’ve seen a lot of people in my years of working here. He is, uh, not someone I would want to be pals with, you feel me?”

Was I sure? No. Not at all. 

I was nervous beyond belief but leaving Gary to himself without any visitors to come wasn’t an option that I saw acceptable. I was the only one that would come and see him, I was sure of it. His parents were far out of state and I was the only soul who gave a damn about his well being despite the abuse he put me through. He was on suicide watch and, probably, needed a friend now more than ever. I gave a nod and confirmed softly, my own voice not sounding real, “I’m sure.”

With that, Theo fiddled with picking out the correct key on his massive keyring until he fit the lock with the right one, opening the door outwards and allowing me to enter as he called, “Smith! You have a visitor.”

Once inside, he shut the door behind me with a wicked sound of closure that gave me the feeling that I was now also a prisoner in the facility.

Gary Smith. Alive, pale, and dressed in bright dark green scrubs that looked well worn from previous inmates. He sat on the edge of his bed with his body leaning over himself in the unhealthy posture I had seen him practice so many times over the desk in our dorm. He sat up, however, when I made my appearance in his newfound home. A smile instantly spread across his face as if he had just won the lottery, dulled eyes lighting a flare of happiness. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t little Petey. You came all this way to see me?”

Ah, Gary, condescending even when imprisoned with nothing to lose. I stuck my hands into my hoodie and kept them there as I focused my attention on him, giving a short nod as my eyes pulled off in a moment and wandered around the room. “Sure did. My legs felt like they were gonna fall off by the time I got here, but I, uh… Wow.”

My voice trailed off as I took in the room I was standing in. His cell was similar to what I had seen on death row inmate documentaries on the television. Their holding zone twenty-four hours before their execution was damn near identical to the layout of Gary's room. It was a small space, maybe half the size of our shared dorm. Two objects of furniture that were nailed and screwed into the cement below the black and white dingey checkered tile were shown off in an unflattering way. The walls were coated in an extremely thin layer of padding for those mentally ill enough to attempt to harm themselves against the cement walls that rested on the other side of the sewn together foam pads. The bare minimum was given to be considered suitable by Government standards, though the room lacked even the most basic of comfort items such as a pillow or a blanket for the poor occupant who found themselves unlucky enough to be trapped in the space.

In this case, that unfortunate bastard was Gary and me for my short visit.

On the far left corner sat a toilet with chipped porcelain and scratches put in place by the previous residents of the worn room. Above the toilet was a single security camera that blinked with a red light to indicate it was recorded at all times. Despite the asylum not caring for discretion, they had been merciful enough to allow the camera to point away from the toilet in view of the rest of the room. The remainder of the living space, however, was only a bed that was bolted in place. A dirtied brown mattress that hadn’t even a sheet to cover up whatever lied stained and soaked in the sprung bed.

Two windows that were long vertically with rows of bars in a check pattern was the only light to illuminate the darkroom. It was early morning, though the sun was risen and should’ve been shown into the cell. Gary was even more unfavorable by Lady Luck as his room faced away from the rising and setting sun, possibly a purposeful decision made by whoever had put him there.

All around the room reflected his fortune and wellbeing.

_ He was fucked. _

Seeing the state of the living quarters left me in a state of shock as my mouth was set agape as I soaked in what was just barely livable enough to be considered humane. I was in awe. No stories told second-hand from the gossiping children at school would’ve prepared me for the conditions at the asylum, let alone that of Cellblock B where Gary was staying.

“Woah, you alright? You look like shit, Pete.”

I turned my pitied eyes to Gary who remained seated on the creaking mattress. No, I wasn’t alright. How could recovery, healing, or maintained mental health take place when this was the reality that faced the town’s sickest people? Where was humanity?

“I-I’m just, uh, surprised is all,” I informed as I forced my mouth to shut tightly, biting the inside of my cheek till I tasted crimson. “I didn’t know it was this bad, Gary.”

The uniformed boy let low a small chuckle that masked whatever emotion he was feeling if anything at all. His speech and face were typically that of a blank canvas, his hollowed-out eyes showing the same emptiness I had often seen when he was forced to return to his behavioral medication. “Yeah, Petey, it’s no fuckin’ picnic, huh? Now, come on, get over here and sit before you pass out like some fainting damsel.”

I forced my feet to move away from the entrance even though my mind screamed for me to, albeit selfishly, turn around and leave. Each moment I stayed in the padded room I could’ve sworn that the room was growing smaller while my chest tightened and restricted my breaths.

“You know, speaking of surprises,” Gary started while I willed myself to sit next to him, “I didn’t think you were gonna show up at all. A week is an awfully long time to not come visit your best buddy in the looney bin, wouldn’t you say? I even considered writing love letters to Eunice to get someone to stop by. What was the holdup, Peter?”

The mood shifted suddenly as if someone had flipped a switch in the asylum room that lacked any manufactured fluorescent lighting. From allowing me to adjust to the new setting to striking a low-level accusatory tone, at least I could take comfort in that Gary was still just as much his paranoid self despite the heavy dosage of medication he was forced to ingest. “You weren’t thinking of skipping out on me, where ya? Up to something behind my back that I don’t know about?”

I wanted to cut him off, tell him he was wrong, stand up for myself in some way. Instead, I proceeded to do what I normally did and sat on my ass while he interrogated me in the same fashion that cops did to any true guilty party. I didn’t have anything to hide, turning my attention from inspecting the room around me to meet his eyesight with a shake of my head. “No,” I replied firmly. “Of course not, man. What do I have to gain from seein’ you here all by yourself? Honestly? I was busy with school and, you know, I didn’t know when visiting hours were.”

I shrugged my shoulders and rested my nervous hands on the knees of my jean covered pants, unsure what the boy was looking for in my response. “That’s all there was to it, really.”

Gary stood up quickly from his spot on the bed next to me, metal frame whining in response to the sudden shift in movement. He stood in front of me, uncombed deep chestnut-colored hair falling into his gaze before he pushed back his bangs to reveal his void eyes and nasty scar. The ADD plagued boy held his right hand out to list off the allegations against me as he spun on his left socked heel away from me and began pacing. He was determined to prove that I was, indeed, conspiring against him and had some twisted motive to gain by not visiting him in the hospital. “One,” he hissed while raising his index finger, pattering against the checkerboard floor. “You get that room aaaaaaall to yourself. Get to do whatever you want without ol’ Gary watching you all the time. I don’t know what sick things you get up to when nobody is looking and quite frankly I don’t want to know, pervert.”

I opened my mouth to speak in protest of my innocent and underwhelming vanilla sexual tendencies but was cut-off by the loud voice of Gary who purposefully beat my speech by continuing on and not allowing me to defend my character. “TWO,” he sharply added on with a glare focusing in on me before turning his back to make another round in his lined walk. “No more tryin’ to babysit me because you feel guilty. No more cleaning up my crumpled papers, waking me up, fetching me food- You’re guilt-free now that I’m out of sight and out of mind, right?”

Out of _(his)_ mind was right. He hit that nail on the head.

This time I couldn’t stop myself from speaking up to combat the verbal assassination. I needed to be more assertive. This was a level playing field, I told myself. Gary couldn’t touch me in an attack without being punished by the staff that watched via the camera and his words held no weight when I was the one who was a freeman who could leave at any time. “Guilty? What do I have to be guilty of? Dude, you really think I would leave you here to rot because of some crumpled papers? Are y-”

Gary whipped around, cutting me off one final time by getting hands-on with me as he suddenly pulled me up by grabbing two fistfuls of my dark navy blue hoodie. He balled the fabric in his hands that wavered with tremors from getting himself worked up, yanking me off the bed and lifting me till I was on my toes to keep balance with the ground. My hands latched onto his wrists instantly, squeezing in protest as I struggled to keep some weight on the floor. Eye-level with the main man of the ghost stories around campus, his voice dropped low with a glare that peered into my soul and sent chills down my spine.

“Three. You’re on Jimmy’s side now and have been for a while if my theory is correct, which I believe it is. It seems awfully convenient that he was the one to show up to keep you company while I was dragged off to a fucking mental hospital. He’s gotten in your head and convinced you I’m the villain. I’m right, aren’t I? Say it. Tell me I’m right!”

I felt my foothold on the floor start to slip underneath me as he raised me just a half or so inch higher, hands tightening around his wrist in protest while I pleaded with him to let me go. He shook me slightly at the end of his accusation, my body helplessly swaying at the mercy of his stronger hands. “G-Gary, come on, please, man, I-I haven’t seen Jimmy in weeks- no, months! I don’t know what he was doing there- I tried to get to you and help. You gotta believe me.”

It was the truth, though the intense hollowed out stare that didn’t dare look away proved that he was far from convinced as I squirmed in his grasp. I heard heavy footsteps descend down the corridor towards his room, grumblings of a man who spoke to himself in clear annoyance while he stalked closer to the cell that I was also now a prisoner of myself. My attention was cut back to Gary as he withdrew deeply in an attempt to even out the paranoia that seeped through his words into our once light, though extremely brief, conversation. He spoke with a voice of curiosity that remained threateningly deep in a show of dominance, a position he held in the odd relationship that was us. “Tell me, Petey,” he closed his eyes while processing the quicked footsteps that neared his doorway to the rest of the facility.

_ “Am I the bad guy?” _

There were a few moments of delay before his cell door screeched open with the jingle of a set of brass keys. I didn’t respond even when he reopened his eyes and took in my frightened demeanor, my body trembling at the unpredictable student that held me in place. I didn’t have anything to reply with, absolutely dumbfounded on what the right answer was. I don’t believe there was a right answer, just a series of several wrong responses that would’ve made the situation, somehow, even worse than it already was.

“Smith! Goddamn it! You put the kid down right now or so help me I’ll put your lights out myself!”

The threat of sedation was the final undoing of the short conversation, Gary’s eyes ripping away from my pathetic stature to assess the orderly who had invited me into the facility. After judging that he would lose in the battle against the large man, he dropped me with the sudden and full unloosening of his hands. A sly chuckle in an acknowledgment of the pinned position Gary was put in with no other option than to let me go. My feet hit the tile below me as I attempted to compose myself once more. Theo stood in the doorway and held a needle with an unknown liquid in his left hand that was the deciding factor of the consciousness of the inmates that behaved poorly, such as the one that took a few steps away from me with his hands up in a mocking defense position.

I was comforted by the large orderly who entered the room once Gary had backed away and retreated to the head of the bed where he sat down nonchalantly as if he hadn’t been completely unhinged a moment ago. Theo thumped my back and planted his hand firmly on my shoulder to guide me out of the room once he was finished giving me a few sympathy pats. I didn’t protest, nor did I speak a word as I was led away from the crumbling down cell. I didn’t know what to say, still at a loss for words of how to respond to the delirium that had taken over Gary.

Theo shifted his frame to close the cell door with the heavy locks in place and I know, I absolutely know, I shouldn’t have rotated myself to catch a glimpse over my shoulder to what was a sick individual that laid inside the room. And yet, despite my brain scrambling to pick up the pieces, I turned.

Sitting against the padded wall of the headboard-less bed was my only friend, a reality that kept me up at night. He had a grin on his face and for once in my life, I could read perfectly the emotions that laid within. Gary was celebrating with his smile at instilling fear within me, winning an imaginary game of dominance that he believed we were participating in. In almost every way he towered over me and was the top dog, constantly putting me down and making it a point to prove that he was the alpha male.

Theo began to swing the door close. The last image I saw of Gary gave me goosebumps as I stood in the lowly asylum of Happy Volts. He raised his right hand up, the hand that had just listed off the ways I was screwing him over and that held me up off of my feet. He waved his fingers individually back and forth in a wiggling manner as a child would, the smile growing impossibly wider as he bit his tongue to prevent himself from laughing at his own joke. 

“Come back soon, princess. I’ll be here- waiting. _Just for you.”_

The orderly mumbled under his breath about how creepy Gary was, but I didn’t stick around long enough to hear a proper examination of what Theo thought of him. I was walking down the hallway and moving towards the exit without realizing that my feet had started moving at all. It wasn’t until I was near the entrance of the facility that I stopped myself from leaving entirely when I heard Theo calling behind me to wait up. I didn’t turn, the only recognition that I heard him at all being my beeline for the exit coming to a halt.

He jogged to me after clicking tight the final locks that imprisoned Gary, the overweight man nearly out of breath from the short trek. “Hey, kid, you alright? I tried to get there as fast as I could. Saw the little bastard raisin’ you off the ground like that- Goddamn, I’m out of shape.”

Theo breathed heavily for a few moments as he waited for his breath to catch up with him and listened for a response from me. I didn’t turn despite the conversation proceeding. Though it was rude of me, my body wouldn’t allow another glimpse behind me in fear of seeing the same cracking Gary. I didn’t want to test my luck and meet eyes with the unbalanced roommate in an irrational thought that he somehow escaped his cell and was waiting for me as he promised.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just need to get out of here. Can you unlock the doors?”

The orderly didn’t press on about my own mental state, though the way he sighed behind me was an indicator that he didn’t believe my societal typical response. I wasn’t okay, but how could I say otherwise? How could a simple outsider looking in on a brief interaction understand what I was feeling if I did say I wasn’t just peachy? Having a long, complicated, tiring, damning, and at times wonderful relationship with Gary wasn’t something that I could convey in a short reply. Seeing him cave in on his own sanity even more so than previously was not an experience I could retell in any shape or form, let alone just after witnessing it. Too many thoughts were swimming through my mind, though my brain kept pushing them out the window to keep my focus on just getting the hell out of the building.

Without another word, Theo walked to his station that was cased around with bulletproof glass, for whatever reason. Maybe they’ve had some unhappy customers come back for a visit once they were released. He clicked a button in the small room that signaled for the double doors to swing open after a stinging sound of an alarm cried out overhead in acknowledgment that they were being accessed.

I walked out of the building without as little as signing myself out. I don’t believe I would have done so even if the orderly had addressed me by saying I had to. 

I simply left.

It wasn’t until I was out of the front gates and cycling quickly far away from the area with tears streaming down my soft red-hued cheeks that I came to the realization of a few things, though none of them stopped me from continuing the speed peddling to wherever I was going.

Not only did I not pick up my own brass bike key, but I hadn’t turned in my visitor's badge that clung against my chest in the wind that slapped my face with each second of acceleration. For whatever reason, at that moment I felt the slightest bit lucky. If I had turned around to face Theo, I would’ve had to stay a second longer to hand over my badge as he remembered, and reminded me, that I was wearing it.

Nothing, not even theft of a badge, made me waver in the judgment of wanting to escape that dreaded asylum as quickly as I could. It wasn’t just the horrendous quality of the building and cell blocks, no, it was more than that. It was seeing my only friend, who even referred to me as his ‘best buddy,’ falling apart in front of me over delusions that weren’t even close to being at all accurate.

Gary had always been on a steep downward decline since that fateful day atop the school, that was never in question. It was seeing the aftermath of his own decisions land him in an asylum for the mentally ill that appeared to already begin to play at his sanity within a week of being in isolation that caused me to cry. The tears came quicker while tracing any offroad that dared my path. I didn’t have any final destination set in place, riding on any dirt road that offered it’s a comfort to drive me away from the hospital.

My breathing came out in short increments as I turned left down the closest soil path. Did he belong there? Was he so far gone that the only hope of keeping him from being a danger to the public, and to himself, was locking him in a small room on suicide watch in hopes that he somehow miraculously heals despite the conditions of the facility? Was there any hope for bettering himself at all or had the state decided that their best bet was to just imprison him without a plan of ever being subjected back to society?

He had seemed to have been doing fine all through the summer and in the early start of the school year. Gary rarely left his room. What could he have done to make himself a target of instability?

I stopped my bike by hitting the brake latch and slamming my feet into the soil, watching as the dirt turned mud-caked my only pair of sneakers. I turned my head away from the front of my bike and proceeded to promptly throw up mostly water and stomach bile as the stress and racing mind reached a breaking point. I coughed, sputtering and spitting twice before swallowing the gasps that followed.

I didn’t know how to help him. How could I? 

Despite all of the, let’s say ‘karma,’ that brought him to Happy Volts, I was also being punished alongside him. My only friend had been torn away and my heart ached for some unknown reason for a boy who treated me less than the scum on his shoe. Why did I care so much? Why did I feel like I was attached to the situation when in reality I could easily take up his paranoia and stay gone forever without he being able to do a damn thing about it?

The crying wasn’t going to stop as my head pounded and the blood throbbed my hearing in my ears. I was sick with the situation, nauseous at where we were. The abuse towards the staff, himself, and me would only grow worse the longer he was at the facility. There didn’t seem to be an option hidden among the clouds that could solve this crisis of mental health that had been coming his way for years prior to his capture.

I sat back on my bike, adjusting my small frame to sit comfortably as I parked along the dirt path on the cloudy Saturday morning. Birds chirped cheerfully in the distance, completely undisturbed and unaware of any of my worries. I forced myself to take in multiple deep inhales, knuckles turning white while I gripped the handlebars to ground myself and get ahold of my trembling body. 

The situation was not one that was favorable to any parties involved. Gary is locked away in a mental ward, Jimmy is now working alongside the state to keep him imprisoned (I think), and I am friendless without a clue what to do.

Heart hurting, body aching, mind full, I laughed. I chuckled to myself at the fucked situation, at my puking response to stress, at the dead-end of ideas of what the future was to bring and the complexity of emotions that came with a passing thought of Gary Smith.

I laughed.

There wasn’t a way out or a happy ending looming overhead and yet here we were.

Both of us.

Together. 

And at that, I laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok an update in two days? unheard of. I got really excited about planning this out and decided to just go ahead and write!
> 
> The interaction with Gary and Petey was short, but I think that Gary would be quick to turn things sour and ruin the whole thing :/
> 
> also... gary: [insert billie eilish bad guy here]
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments!!! Comments and kudos are what lets me know that people are reading!!


	3. Saturday, September 19th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 42 Days until Halloween.

I didn't want to visit Gary in the hospital and yet I had awoken early enough of Saturday morning to do just that. I had set my alarm on my wristwatch early with the full intention of, once more, getting up to make the bike track to see him before the rest of my day started. I groaned and hit snooze on my gray digital watch the first time it had gone off, adjusting the pixelated face to allow for ten more minutes of well-deserved sleep after I had spent the night before picking up the mess that used to be his work station. 

I was up later than I should've been, nearing around midnight the night previously when typically I had been one to go to bed regularly at nine at night. I had worked myself up into bordering an anxiety attack over the thought of returning to the rundown asylum once more and experiencing the mess of the state-run facility with a sprinkle of Gary's insanity starting to break on top. It wasn't a trip that I looked forward to, not in the slightest, and I had been pondering over what I should do until I had broken myself down into a crying mess.

Not very manly.

I didn't want to go to the asylum for my own wellbeing, yet I felt guilty at even the prospect of abandoning Gary there all by himself. That was the accusation that he had pinned on me and a great fear of his that he made apparent by the way he had gotten upset. Besides me, he didn't have anyone else that would visit him or even call him on the phone lines to check in on how he was doing. I was truly the only person he had and still, he pushed me away. 

Despite all he had put me through, including the last visit where I had received his verbal assault, I still wanted to see Gary. If not for him, to ease my own selfish guilt that pooled when considering not appearing for a visitation.

Gary was never-ending, swimming through my head and making me want to scream and somehow find a way to forget who he was entirely, to seek out some sort of alternative solution that would allow me to not remember him at all. My feelings were as confused as my brain regarding who he was and how I felt about him overall. I hated him most of the time for the abuse he put against me and the awful way he treated me, yet I found myself emotionally clinging to him and seeking him out of crowds until we were together once more even if just a minute prior he was berating me over something microscopic. 

I despised myself for the complexity I felt for someone who treated me worse than garbage.

Why was it so difficult to hate him entirely and just move on? 

During my mini-anxiety attack, I began cleaning to try and ground myself in some sense of the word. I had always felt better if I was having a dramatic episode in a cleanroom versus a messy one, always have been tending to the side of organized. Unlike Gary, I found comfort in the lack of chaos.

My side of the room was tidy and already spotless before I even started cleaning. It was his piles of papers, discarded notebook sheets, and various sticky notes that littered the desk and floor around it that I caught myself staring at. My skin itched to fix it, never before having stopped long enough to examine the mess that sat just inside of our doorway. I hadn’t ever paid much mind to the disaster that Gary had caused in our only “shared” study. The desk was used by him, and he only, so I placed the workspace as belonging to him and not mine to clean. The entire messy display was ingrained in my mind and blended into the walls when I entered the room, but now it was missing a key element that forced me to take more consideration while stopping by.

Gary wasn’t there.

I had walked over to the study area and started by picking up the papers that surrounded the overflowing small wire garbage pail that sat next to it, discarded notes falling out of the bin as I tried my best to stuff down the overstocked garbage. Pages and pages worth of near-endless words riddled the crumpled notebook sheets that were sprawled uncaringly across the floor. I felt sorry for the acres of trees that Gary had wasted in his journaling.

After picking up what was obvious trash from the floor, I moved on to the top of the desk and exhaled a sigh of an unsure tone. I didn't know how Gary would react to me having touched his things now that he was absent. If he would've been there and had caught me rummaging through the papers, I probably would've been beaten up or tortured in some manner for having dared to disturb his things. He was as strict about people handling his items as he was with people touching him. Both were lines you simply didn't cross unless you were actively hoping to get beat up.

Gary was gone, however, and the room was now solely mine. All of his belongings now were owned by me, in a way. I had inherited everything he owned for the time being.

I made the decision to pile together all of his things into two separate categories. After having waited around long enough for something to happen, I willed my hands to begin sorting the pages best I could. I was proud of myself an hour or so once I had finished, stepping away from the two messes of paper to examine my work. One pile was devoted to notes that seemed to be intact for the most part, journals that he had kept together and crisp. Notes and letters that had a great amount of writing and mindless doodles that I believed he would've wanted to be kept getting put in the group. The other pile was loose papers that could've been considered trash from my limited view standpoint. Those papers consisted of torn notes scribbled out writings, and sticky notes that were at one point crumpled, but still rested on top of the desk. 

With the two piles that I tried to organize into two large stacks completed, I glanced around my room to find somewhere to keep the papers locked away until he returned to reclaim them. I wasn't brave enough to throw out the pile that looked like trash, not by a long shot, and I didn't have any concept of how important the other stack was without violating trust and reading what they had written on them.

While I had been cleaning up I had caught a few words here and there from my eyes glancing on top of the papers. Most of the penciled in letterings seemed to be of nothing important, discussing dates, times, and locations of different places around Bullworth. Some of the words mentioned students that attended Bullworth, but in an extremely short sense before moving on to the next timestamp that was listed. 

None of it was interesting. No gossip, secrets, or pressing drama to be shared.

I moved the piles into the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. I made room by shifting around Gary’s socks before placing the stacks next to each other and placing the socks on top of the papers to hide them just in case someone came in while I was gone. At first, I considered sitting them on the flat surface on top of the wooden wardrobe but ultimately decided against it. 

I knew that my curiosity would eventually get the better of me if I were to see the papers every day and wondered what more that they said. It was for the best in maintaining what little trust Gary had in me and what even smaller confidence I had in myself.

I used to keep a small light purple clothed diary under my bed until I found out that Gary had picked the dinky silver lock and read the entire thing while I was in class for the day. Worse off, not only did he read about me discussing a potential crush that I had on Beatrice and a few embarrassing erotic dreams that I had experienced, but he had written his own notes next to my writing in red ink besides the journal entries. He called me names in the notes and made his own jokes with his pen before putting the book back where he had found it, relocking it, and going about his day.

I was horrified when I opened it up the day after and went to write once more. Since then I have given up writing at all, the violation of privacy leaving a nasty emotional scar. Despite him having broken my trust long ago, I still tried my best to keep his belief in me intact. I didn’t have a good explanation as to why and I still do not.

Gary reading my journal was nearly three years ago. A lifetime away it felt like. 

I had known Gary since the start of high school at the Academy. I had always lived in Bullworth in the state of Vermont and was familiar with every site and setting that could be found in the little town. Gary, however, was from out of state. He was from a few states over, Rhode Island I believe, and had never even heard of our town before his parents had dropped him off and left to go live elsewhere. 

Gary had always been a troubled, problem child. I never got a clear answer of why he behaved the way he did, but I had found out extremely quickly when we had been put as roommates our freshman year that he was not someone to be messed with. He had always been rude, manipulative, and awful to me and anyone else who stepped into his eyesight. I was especially his favorite punching bag, though, since I was forced to be with him even after school hours had ended.

And here we were, our senior year, still roommates and involved in each other's lives throughout the awful shit he had done over the years.

I eventually crashed out after deep cleaning the desk, making my bed a few times till it was perfect, and then making Gary's bed neatly. His poor bed had probably never been made the entire time I knew him and I felt some sympathy for the misuse of the furniture. I tried not to be creepy while making his bed tidy and unfamiliar to how it normally was, but my thoughts were on a roll before I could protest.

The bed smelled like him. He had a distinct smell, one that I can’t describe too well, but a familiar scent that reminded me of home. Maybe it was because I had become used to Gary always being around or maybe it was just a smell that I was accustomed to growing up. Either way, it was a calming reminder that normality wasn’t too far off if he was still imprinted in the furniture of our room.

I didn't realize how tired I must've been after my anxiety attack paired up with cleaning until I woke up the next morning sprawled out on Gary's bed with my school uniform still on. His blankets and pillow hugged me close and the smell of him never lingered away in the night.

* * *

Gary and I walked outside the building of Happy Volts together in silence for a few moments until we had sufficiently gained enough distance from the hard eyes of Theo. We walked down the short hill towards the rustic shed that sat inside of the gate, of earshot from the orderly as best as we could figure. It was as far as we could get without being out of his sight.

I had arrived early like I had the previous Saturday, still unsure of the visiting hours, and requested that I see Gary outside of his cell regardless of him having lifted me off of my feet the last time I had seen him. At first, Theo had laughed in my face after glancing up from the newest issue of the pornography magazine that he read, but when he saw that I was serious he started laughing even harder.

It wasn't the hospital itself, but the entire situation wrapped up with a birthday bow that I couldn't handle confidently. Seeing the state of the asylum, Gary’s barely livable room, and the crumbling student all put together wasn’t a front-row seat I wanted to process again anytime soon. 

I didn’t want to return to Cellblock B.

I had worked out a deal with Theo, though at first, he didn't seem to be in the mood to strike a barter with me. After convincing him to lower the naked magazine for a moment, I suggested a trade-off that he ended up being shockingly receptive to. I talk Gary into being better well behaved and allowing the orderlies to do their jobs and Theo lets the two of us have some time outdoors away from the cameras but still under his supervision.

The orderly had thought it through briefly before agreeing, giving off the idea that Gary had been more than just a handful in his short stay at the hospital. I had been sure of this just by the student's typical opposition to authority even without Theo having almost come out and said it directly. Gary had been a complete nightmare by the quick way that Theo had agreed.

Gary and I both eventually stopped walking until we were standing next to the small storage building at the front of the gates, Theo crossing his arms and viewing us while leaning against one of the few pillars just outside of the double doors to the facility. He didn't take his eyes off of us for a moment as we walked, but had allowed us to trail further out to get some privacy to talk.

We stood in silence despite the ability to chat without being monitored. I didn’t know where Gary’s emotions and attitude stood for that day, his ranging personality being a high or low on any given moment.

Gary hadn't made any snide comment about me resurfacing to see him when Theo escorted him out of his cell and to the outdoors. The second he saw me he twisted his face into a cringe, no words to be scoffed at in my direction, barely acknowledging I was present at all.

Theo warned us that we only had around fifteen minutes to talk before he would need to bring Gary back inside, finding another staff worker to cover his place in the entrance hall of the building. Fifteen minutes didn't seem like a lot of time when I first agreed, but after standing in dead air for only a few moments I wished that our time limit was substantially shorter.

Gary crossed his arms and laid his body against the front of the storage shed, eyeing Theo daringly as he mocked the orderly's body movements in a testing manner. I didn't bike all the way to have Gary spoil the bartered deal, sighing and braving the first words between us before Theo had a chance to correct Gary's defiant attitude.

"I thought that you, um, might not wanted to see me. I made you upset last time, I think."

It was an honest statement. I thought that I had, somehow, upset Gary even though the boy had gotten himself worked up with the false accusations. Me standing up to him, however, was what I believed had put him over the edge and had gone physical.

Gary glared at Theo from his place against the paneling, arms crossed tightly over his patient scrubs that hung loosely from his body. He looked like he had lost some weight in the short time he had been staying at the hospital. 

Had they been feeding him right? Had he been refusing to eat?

"Yeah, well," Gary muttered with his typical tone of arrogance, "When you don't drop a line for over a week, you start to question if anyone is gonna show up at all. It was a bad day all around. They tried to get me to go to their stupid fuckin' breakfast group therapy right before you stopped by. I may have been a little wound tight even before you came, so it's not like it was completely you. And maybe pulling you up wasn't entirely called for. I don't know. Let’s just drop it."

I felt my chest blossom with a small amount of warmth. It was a Gary Apology if I had ever heard one. He never, ever apologized in a normal manner the entire years that I had known him, but he had his own version that was an offer the best he could. Gary would only take a small amount of the blame, though not a lot, and would pin the rest on someone else for being at fault. Gary taking even an ounce of the blame, however, was huge. 

_It was a Gary Apology!_

I smirked to myself and turned my head to the right so he didn't view my small victory, the boy laying to the left of me. Maybe it was the right move to revisit him after all? I shifted my head back to looking ahead at Theo who whistled to himself, eyes dropping on us every few moments to check-in. I spoke with softness in my voice, crossing my own arms in a comfortable manner while getting pressing my back on the worn siding. I wanted to move on from even thinking about the last visit I had with Gary, though the half-assed apology was nice. We both didn’t feel the need to speak of it any further. 

"Things are different with you gone. It's so weird not seeing you up all night at your desk, man. It feels wrong. You still writing?"

I turned to get a look at him while waiting for a response, gaze drinking in his appearance as if I was looking at a completely different man than the one I had gotten to know over our high school years. Gary looked normal, for the most part, but in the scrub uniform, he seemed like a stranger. I was used to seeing him in sweatpants and an old t-shirt, except for the early morning walks where he would slip on his large deep green sweatshirt and occasionally put on some nicer pants even if it was briefly. 

Something had caught my attention, however, the longer I stared.

"Meh, not really," Gary answered with his left hand drumming his right forearm in general disinterest and boredom. "Theo tried to give me a journal my first day and I threatened to stick the pencil through his eyes until his brain was soup. I did a lot of other, let's say, ‘choice things.’ Said a lot of bad stuff. Now I don't even have the option to write if I wanted to."

Gary let out a small breath when he finished speaking, watching Theo from our tiny haven away from the horrific conditioned hospital. 

I couldn't stop watching him now that I had noticed. 

"Speaking of," he continued on without me. "I need you to do me a favor. I need you to burn all of my papers. Every single one. Don't throw them in the dumpster, don't rip them up, don't make origami things with them. Burn 'em if it has writing on it. Got it?"

He stayed staring in Theo's direction, veering off to view the light yellowed blue sky when he grew tired of watching the orderly. I swallowed my anxiety down and decided to let him know that I had already moved the papers, though I was risking him being angry that I had touched them at all without his say-so. "Actually," I informed with a false sense of smoothness in my voice, "I already gathered everything. They’re sitting in the bottom of our dresser underneath your socks and before you ask, no, I didn’t read them. They should be safe there."

Gary let out a sigh that was thick with annoyance and a growing pissed off demeanor. He turned toward me, arms crossing even tighter as he did such in a displayed move of trying to establish his ever-critical dominance. "What the fuck, Petey? What did I just say? I told you to bur- wait, why are you  _ staring _ at me, you weirdo?"

My gaze hadn't shifted off of him since I had taken note, loosening my arms till they hung in front of me and rubbed together anxiously. I shouldn't have been watching him for so long, that was definitely on me and kind of a creepy move on my part. "It's, just, uh," I faltered while finding a loose string on my oversized blue hoodie that I absentmindedly tugged at. "You're eyes. They're kinda looking back to normal- well, normal from when I first met you. They got you back on your meds, then?"

Gary had always been on and off with his behavioral medications, never being one to stick with the daily pills for more than a few weeks and throwing out the entirety of the bottles when he was bored with them. It had been a long, long time since I had last seen him with the overly dulled eyes that proved that he was back to taking his medication on a regular basis. Gary must've been taking the pills the last visit that I had with him, but it was a long-term release medicine combination. The medication wouldn't have worked as strongly within the first week and started to work slowly over time. 

His dulled out eyes had a pace of slowness to them, indicating that the medicine was starting to stabilize his ADHD and erratic behavior. His eyes weren't fully back to how I remembered them the last time he had consistently followed the doctor's plan, but they were getting there. 

Gary scoffed at the question, moving back to see Theo with a growing angry mood radiating off of him. He hated the questioning of his medication. "Yeah, Petey," he hissed out. "I have to, okay? They force me to. I don't have a choice and it fucking sucks, you idiot. They want to numb my brain and make me stupid so I’m easy to control. I won't let them, though. They can't keep me down for long. They’ll see."

There was a silence between us once more. I knew what he meant, indicating some form of release or escape, but I didn't know how to ask. Outright curiously asking his plan of freedom wasn't a move that I thought would be smart on my behalf, Gary most likely turning to question why I cared in a smart-mouthed way. Instead, I waited. I knew him better than anyone else in town. 

If you wait, he'll come out with everything you need to know in a manner of time. Gary was too proud to keep his genius hidden.

Two minutes or so passed of us sitting without anything being said. At one point, Theo squinted towards us as if we were plotting something bad in our wordless minutes. It wasn't until I flashed him a quick thumbs-up before he turned his head away and resumed his whistling that we could barely hear from our space apart. The silent air wasn't entirely uncomfortable, glancing over to see Gary's eyes studying a random patch of grass deep in thought. To him, I was confident he didn’t even notice. For me, however, it was a little unnerving. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to deplete the silence, but I was stopped.

And, as if on cue of how I predicted, I became informed. 

"Something interesting happened the other day."

My eyes flickered over to analyze Gary who continued to watch the ground in a thoughtful manner. He wanted me to ask, so I did. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

He shrugged his shoulders and continued to downplay the importance of what he was relaying to me as if it didn't matter at all to him. Gary was good at putting on a show of being uninterested, but I was keen to know otherwise. He rarely spoke without meaning. Gary answered, drumming his fingers once more without ever tearing his eyes from the dirt, "Couple of days ago, mm, probably on Monday, this little group of college kids playing dress-up came in. They were in these lab coats with safety goggles, walking around the halls and looking into the rooms. They had clipboards and were taking notes, but they weren't doctors. They were just kids."

Huh?

I turned my head and felt my eyebrows pushing together in confusion. I knew that all asylums in our state required doctors to do daily checkups of their more intensive patients, a law forcing the staff to almost always have a doctor on hand, but I had never heard of a team of young adults wandering the facilities. "What do you mean? Like, they were just students? That’s… strange."

Gary raised up his right shoulder in a short shrugging manner once more, humming in agreement as he nodded towards my curiosity. He continued on the odd recalling of the memory. "Exactly. The group looked just a year or two older than us, probably around nineteen or twenty. Only about seven of them. They followed around some guy who was way older, their teacher I'm guessing. They were writing down notes and going from door to door, looking in the cells that had people in ‘em. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I decided, for the sake of figuring out what was happening, to go to the common area during downtime. First time I’ve done so since being locked in this prison."

The hospitalized student chuckled quietly, shaking his head while remembering the orderly's reaction. "You should've seen the look on Theo's face,” he laughed. “When I asked nicely to go sit on the couch, he about shit his pants. He couldn't believe that I could behave and wanted to be around the morons."

At this, I also giggled quietly. I probably would've been in the same boat as Theo if I had experienced it for myself. Gary was rarely nice or polite, more so brash and straight to the point. To think that he was kind in asking to join the rest of the population, two huge stepping stones in one must've been surreal to be a part of.

"Anyway," Gary waved his hand up once and kept talking. "I listened to the inpatient idiots talk about it. Apparently every two weeks these college kids come from some big-name preppy school in Liberty City that’s about an hour away. According to one inmate, they take some nice furnished tour bus over here. The college kids, come to find out, are wannabe psychiatrists or something. Trying to get a degree in mental health or whatever. It doesn't matter. The point is, they always come every other Monday, walk around for a few hours, and then leave. Their instructor is some veteran Freshman teacher and so all the kids are newbies to it, you know?"

Gary turned his head to me while I listened carefully, nodding along every couple of words to acknowledge my attention to the story. He smiled slyly at me, the same wicked look I had seen numerous times before when he was truly up to no good. He asked in a devious tone, not caring much if he received a response, "Interesting stuff, isn't it?"

He studied my unsure reaction, his smile growing even wider when he realized that I wasn't quick enough to catch on to whatever he was getting at. I shook my head and decided to ask him, point-blank, what he was getting at. 

"Why are you telling me this, Gary? What's the angle and how are you going to rope me into it this time?"

The other student laughed, genuinely. His shoulders quaked at my brash questioning that refused to be sucked into some game of his, though I had a sinking feeling that I was going to end up doing just that. Games were what Gary played. He liked to toy with people's heads until they thought that down was up and left was right. It was always good fun for him.

"Ah," his laughter dying down with the grin still wide. "Whatever do you mean, fem-boy?"

I rolled my light mocha eyes and released an impatient breath, hands diving into my hoodie pocket to fidget and hide the anxiety that crept in the muscles of my shoulders. It was a gnawing feeling that nipped at my stomach that I couldn't shake the closer our steps walked to hearing about his next scheme. I knew that somehow I was involved, as usual. "You know what I mean, Gary. I know you pretty well, so I know that means that there is some grand plan you have in the works that probably involves me getting myself in trouble for you, right?"

Gary's smile faded the more I spoke, but it had never been wiped away completely. It was almost sinister the smirk he contained to his face, words following next being framed in a concerning statement. "I don't think you know me as well as you like to think, Petey."

Our eyes met when he uttered my name. I didn't know what he meant, but I knew that the words had a deeper meaning than what could be found on the surface. To a certain degree, Gary was right. I didn't know him as well as I told myself. I didn't know his past history, the medication he was on, or all that went on in his head. 

He was right.

I didn't speak but instead waited for him to pick back up the cryptic conversation where he had left it off. Gary undid his arms and rested his pale palms flat against the metal storage shed, hands twitching when he saw Theo dramatically tap his watch from the front of the entrance to inform us that we were almost out of time. The taller student spoke with a near giddy voice, "A plan in the works that involves you is right, Pete, but it's far too early to tell what it's gonna shape up to be. I think I have an idea, a solid one, too. I couldn't get a great look at the tour, though, because I'm back in Cellblock B. They spent a lot of time in A, it seems like. Even talked to some of the morons that were in their cells."

Perfect opportunity.

I still had a promise to Theo that I needed to keep about Gary being a better patient and what better way to convince the defiant boy to comply if not finding a way to work it into his master scheme? I gave a nod shortly, clicking my tongue once and added on as smooth as possible, "Well, sounds like you're gonna have to get moved to A for good behavior, huh?"

I knew that if Gary was aware that I had struck a deal with Theo that he would try his hardest to be bad just to spite the man. I had to keep the barter trade quiet, for all three of our sake's. Gary gave a sour face but ultimately agreed with the idea of having to fake being decent acting. "Yeah," he grumbled out. "Unfortunately."

Before I had a chance to ask him about how his stay was going otherwise, I was interrupted by Theo calling for us to bring it in from the top of the hill. Gary muttered a few curses under his breath, but both of us leaned away from the shed and started walking up the short trek of the steep hill. Gary spoke up as we began advancing to the asylum, keeping his voice low to avoid the invading ears of Theo, "Come back in two weeks. I'll have a better idea of what's going on with this tour thing and by then I'll have, for sure, been moved to A. In the meantime just stay away and give me space to think- oh, and burn those papers. Seriously, use fire. Don't read them or I'll beat the shit out of you."

I wanted to know, now, even worse than I did before what was written down in the long piles of papers that he had accumulated over the summer even though the words had come accompanied by a threat. I didn't push, though, nodding in compliance without questioning his request. 

We found ourselves once more at the entrance to Happy Volts, Gary strolling past Theo to the heavy doors that would imprison him inside and lockout the freedom of the outside world. Something awfully peculiar happened before he was inside the building, however, that left me feeling an entirely new set of confusing emotions regarding Gary. 

The boy opened the door and turned back towards me, gripping the metal handle as he halted in his footsteps to stop from advancing inside. His eyes met mine, contact linking between us despite my anxiety begging me to break and look away. Gary gave a short half mouthed smirk, one that I couldn't decipher between forced or genuine. He was always a blank canvas. Gary spoke with sincerity, though, in an extremely rare and strange turn of events.

"Thanks for comin' to see me, Petey. It means a lot. See you in two weeks?"

I was taken aback. 

Gary Smith had just said thank you?

"Y-Yeah, man," I fumbled out as he turned to disappear inside of the facility without waiting for an answer. I confirmed with a single nod to myself rather than him, Theo following Gary into the building with a confused expression at the odd actions of the asylum patient and my former roommate. 

"Two weeks, Gary."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Petey is absolutely dying to know what the papers say. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos give me warm fuzzies uwu

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy! 
> 
> I wrote this story several years ago, probably back in 2013/2014ish. The original is still posted and was abandoned after a few chapters, but here I am back again to try and rewrite it the way younger me would've wanted it done. 
> 
> The tags will update as new chapters are posted as to not spoil the absolute shit-show that is to come. Gary is truly off his rocker and will be displayed as such throughout this fic.
> 
> As a side note: Jimmy will be absent for most of this story. It is mainly about the weird relationship that is Gary/Petey. Though he does come in later and plays a big part and is mentioned several times, he is definitely a side character to the duo.
> 
> All comments are appreciated! Knowing that people are reading and actively wanting to see the story continue is what encourages me to continue!  
> Thanks for reading :)


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